Kāma at the Kadamba Court: The Guḍnāpur Pillar Inscription of Ravivarman as a Text-Monument
Abstract In March 1971, B.R. Gopal discovered a partially buried pillar with visible inscribed writing in the village of Guḍnāpur in Karnataka. The monument has since become known as the Guḍnāpur Pillar Inscription of Ravivarman (ca. 465–500 CE ) after the ruler of the early Kadamba kingdom who comm...
Authors: | ; |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Brill
2021
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In: |
Indo-Iranian journal
Year: 2021, Volume: 64, Issue: 1, Pages: 10-50 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Karnataka
/ Kadamba, Family 350-600
/ Kama, God
/ Temple
/ Inscription
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RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism KBM Asia |
Further subjects: | B
Epigraphy
B Karnataka B land-grants B Hinduism B donative practice B South India B temple worship B royal genealogy B Kāma |
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Summary: | Abstract In March 1971, B.R. Gopal discovered a partially buried pillar with visible inscribed writing in the village of Guḍnāpur in Karnataka. The monument has since become known as the Guḍnāpur Pillar Inscription of Ravivarman (ca. 465–500 CE ) after the ruler of the early Kadamba kingdom who commissioned it. The inscription preserves a compelling historical record that details the intersections of religious and political performance at the Kadamba court as centered around a temple to Kāma constructed within the confines of the royal residence at Vaijayantī (Banavasi), and the distribution of agrarian lands to support its maintenance. This study presents a new translation and analysis of the text and a discussion of the pillar as a ‘text-monument’ that was both embedded within and constitutive of landscapes: physical and built as well as rhetorical and imagined. By presenting the Guḍnāpur inscription as a text-monument situated within multiple landscapes, the article reveals how documentary, donative, religious, and agrarian practices supported state-making in an early South Indian kingdom. |
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ISSN: | 1572-8536 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Indo-Iranian journal
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15728536-06401007 |